


let my heart, the wine of falsehood drink

by everything_else



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Casual Sex, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, To An Extent, Unresolved Romantic Tension, although casual is not the word, barely, we're not going to let a revolution get in the way of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23779087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everything_else/pseuds/everything_else
Summary: It was easier to see on this side of the barricade, and therefore easier to descend. On the ground, Couferyac pulled him into an embrace. The low murmur of conversation ceased for a moment, and a row of faces turned to watch them. They were sat, for the most part, their weapons laid about them and glinting in the light of the torches."It lacks the grandeur of Versailles, I think."Some of them laughed at that, though one asked irritably whether he came to cast scorn. Jean Prouvaire appeased him quietly.Enjolras stood apart, and for a moment he was immortal, fair Ezekiel bringing news to the righteous of the end of times, even as Grantaire knew better than most that he was flesh.The men dropped their heads and returned to their own conversations as he approached Grantaire. Combferre watched them warily.“Perhaps some heads might be mounted?” Grantaire asked. “Or is that a little gauche?”“What are you doing?”“I have come to fight for the divine right of Louis XXI. That is your cause, if I’m not mistaken?”
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	let my heart, the wine of falsehood drink

Grantaire was drunk. Which is to say, he was himself, at his grandest potential. He did not know how long he'd been at the Barriere du Maine, amidst the familiar miasma of cigarette smoke and raucous, but the men around the table had not been strangers since midday.

“He thinks Thenardier a hero of Waterloo.” He said. “He seeks to repay him the life of his father.”

Brujon leaned back in his chair and bellowed his good humour. “He’d repay more than that before he’d be corrected. Those school boys have more means than sense, no?”

“Loyalty stays my lips” Grantaire smiled. It was the first time in a few hours it had felt empty.

The sun did not reach them, but severed on the dark floorboards near the front of the bar. There were no windows, and warm days such as this passed without notice, like beggars by the shop fronts. If Grantaire drank enough, today might do the same, and he would keep his promise.

There was a hush as a young man burst through the door, a sabre in his hand and a cockade pinned to his chest. “Gentlemen! The barricades rise around the rue Saint-Martin and rue Saint-Danis. Long live the revolution!”

A cheer went up, though in various sincerity, and somewhere near a glass smashed, adding to the din. A few men near the entrance and at the tables outside made their leave. A volley sounded on the corner.

Today the fourth horseman joined his fellows and rode the bright streets of Paris, amidst the funeral procession of General Lamarque. Safety was dispersed, and his friends would stand in it’s wake. The men around the table were not his friends, Grantaire thought, though they were more alike; they would not halt a game of poker for judgement day.

Grantaire did not leave until light was dying on the cobbles on the Rue de la Chanvrerie. The narrow houses were shuttered to the roofs, some with boards nailed to their front, and heat hung in the air with the dry smell of smoke.

Death would not have taken them. He would spare them for their good nature but one, whom he would spare in cowardice. Grantaire did not look too long at the dark shape slumped beside an alley, for it did not move when a rat scuttled past.

The street lamps were smashed as Grantaire approached the barricade, a jagged line against the evening sky. A shout went up.

“I come to join Les Amis de l’ABC and their noble leader” Grantaire replied. 

“Grantaire?” It was Bossuet. “You bastard!”

A dishevelled head appeared in silhouette and removed the bayonet from another watch “We know him” said a voice belonging to Couferyac. "Let him up."

The barricade was difficult to climb quickly, a black mass spiked with nails and splintered wood, and Grantaire was unsteady besides. Bossuet helped him up with strong arms once he was near, and embraced him roughly on the other side. He smelled like sweat and gunpowder.

“You are all unharmed?” Grantaire asked.

“Everyone from the Musain, yes.”

Grantaire held him for a moment longer. He did not want to expose the enormity of his relief. "And this is the edifice of liberty?" he asked, and Bossuet laughed.

It was easier to see on this side of the barricade, and therefore easier to descend. On the ground, Couferyac pulled him into an embrace. The low murmur of conversation ceased for a moment, and a row of faces turned to watch them. They were sat, for the most part, their weapons laid about them and glinting in the light of the torches. 

"It lacks the grandeur of Versailles I think."

Some of them laughed at that, though one asked irritably whether he came to cast scorn. Jean Prouvaire appeased him quietly.

Enjolras stood apart, and for a moment he was immortal, fair Ezekiel bringing news to the righteous of the end of times, even as Grantaire knew better than most that he was flesh.

The men dropped their heads and returned to their own conversations as he approached Grantaire. Combferre watched them warily.

“Perhaps some heads might be mounted?” Grantaire asked. “Or is that a little gauche?”

“What are you doing?”

“I have come to fight for the divine right of Louis XXI. That is your cause, if I’m not mistaken?”

Enjolras would give him no sign of amusement now; no quirk of his mouth or irritated look that meant Grantaire had succeeded in causing the severity of his spirit to rebel. He knew he would not, and yet he desired it.

"Forgive me. I have not slept."

“It’s not safe” is all that Enjolras said. From his look, the other men would see he was delivering a censure. He was Samson among the philistines, eaten honey from a lion. They probably knew better than Grantaire how Enjolras disliked him.

“No, not for a mortal. And you are fallen, Apollo.” Grantaire stepped closer to touch his arm, where his white shirt was spotted dark with blood. It was reckless, and Enjolras pulled back as if he risked corruption.

Gavroche, the boy, brought bread and cheese from Madame Houcheloup under the cover of night, to Couferyac and others’ stern reproval. The men passed the sack back and forth, ripping pieces off until nothing remained, and Grantaire retrieved wine from the Corinthe which he opened with a knife. Bossuett shared in it and almost set the barricade alight with an upset torch, to Joly’s horrified reprimand.

Marius spoke of a girl, and Grantaire did not have the heart to tease him.

One by one, they fell asleep, like stars might appear in the sky outside the city, sprawled against crates or furniture or each other. There could be an attack at any moment, which was to say, after a few long hours, that there could never be one.

The wine was warm and sweet, and Grantaire was grateful. The night seemed to be getting closer.

Enjolras’ shadow wavered on the wall as he leant to wake Prouvaire with a gentle hand; it was his turn on watch, and he scrambled for his gun before mounting the barricade.

Enjolras was staid, drawn. He was a vision of Ganymede if he’d denied the gods.

“Do you wish to be among our number when they write our history?” he asked, after some time had passed. Grantaire had broken his promise.

“No.” said Grantaire. “I don’t care for history.”

“You know much of it.”

Grantaire answered his accusation plainly. “I pretend to, for your attention.” He knew the question he really sought to ask.

“You do yourself a disservice, in more than just that.” Enjolras said. “And you have had my attentions.”

“A few times.” Grantaire agreed. He lifted the bottle, for it allowed him to avert his eyes.

Enjolras refused it when he offered. A wreath of laurels would become his hair. “I am not well adjusted. You know.”

Grantaire smiled. “Do not break my heart Apollo, that I have missed my chance to drink you foolish.”

“There never was such a chance, so you cannot have missed it.” Neither one of them believed it, and Grantaire’s smile was rueful.

“Because you are too devoted to Paris. I should be envious of a Prince of Troy.” He drank again, and Enjolras did not reply. He was meant to be painted by firelight, Grantaire thought.

He had said once, rather too loudly at the Café Musain, that the man who tried to paint Enjolras would hang himself within the hour, and that that man would inexorably be himself.

The torches flickered dimly. In only a few yards the street was subsumed into blackness, and Grantaire wondered if he was afraid. The silence seemed unending.

“I think to love Paris is to live in it” he said, finally, when something dark threatened his thoughts. It was a return to their usual subjects, of hope and ideals and the futility of both. Combeferre had once needed to come between them, when Grantaire quoted Socrates and deemed suffering the greatest of all wealth.

“Yet you would die, to stay here?” Enjolras asked. 

“My case is different. Paris would rejoice, I think.”

“Not all.”

Enjolras had kissed Grantaire many times, in the empty meeting room, after a night of heated argument. His heart always beat fast, mouth open and undissenting. Enjolras crowded him against the wall with kisses red as whores’ lips; as Fragonard's curtain, blood spilled in peacetime, a seal of melted wax. Never had a cynic been so willingly broken.

“Is it because you have no ambition beyond your own pleasure, that you talk of art and gods and philosophy in the hope we may join you?”

“Why, am I persuasive?”

They met, somehow, between hypotheticals, in Grantaire's room amidst the scattered books and canvases and unmade bed; a Heaven for the undecided.

"You are not so eloquent" Grantaire breathed once, with some courage.

Enjolras looked at him, and his pleasure painted him entirely new, beautiful and disgraced. "You seem amenable." He moved, and Grantaire could hardly bear it.

His reply was mercifully unspoken: I am to you.

The night before the funeral was different. Enjolras was quiet, and every kiss felt like a promise unmade.

He withdrew as soon as the first blue light tinged the sky. He had a carved look, as if his skin would be marble to touch, and Grantaire needed him to come back, slide a hand into his hair, remind him of his warmth. Enjolras did not.

"You won't come to the barricade." he said. It sounded like something between an order and a confession, and he did not turn.

"Why?" Grantaire worked to keep the emotion out of his voice, and watched him lace the sleeves of his white shirt.

"Because I would not permit you to die with us."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not expecting many people to read this, so if you did hi!!  
> This is obvs quite far from canon, I'm going more for a wild extrapolation of, and changes to, what we see in the musical, rather than referring to the book.  
> Anyway please leave a comment if you enjoyed!! Constructive criticism is also welcome. Thanks for reading <3


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